A strong web presence is vital to the success of modern businesses. In addition to the traditional marketing vehicle of a company web site, businesses are increasingly indexed with a variety of secondary sources. Examples of these secondary sources include search engines, mapping providers that provide directions to the place of business, review sites allowing users to rate their purchase experience, social networking sites that allow users to “link” to particular businesses to which they may be associated, and more. These secondary sources typically allow for business owners to make their business available via various searching and indexing methods. For example, a social networking site may allow a user to search for a particular type of business within a certain number of social “links” of the user, or a mapping provider may allow for the user to search for a particular business within a certain geographical radius.
However, by allowing business owners to submit their own records for listing, these secondary sites also provide an opportunity for malicious and opportunistic users to include false records. For example, a user may list a false store front in a major metropolitan area, including a link to a mail order service in another country, or a user may list a business purporting to sell authentic merchandise, when in fact the listing links to a site selling counterfeit goods. Even worse, many of these listings may link to malicious software and function as virus delivery vectors. These false record listings reduce the “signal-to-noise” ratio of search results and interfere with site usability.